


Of Gods and the Ties That Bind

by Qwerty_Hargreeves_25



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fantasy, Fluff and Humor, God!Ben, I would kill for them, M/M, Magical Realism, Not Siblings, Soulmates, a series of misunderstandings, always brothers in my heart, how does one accidentally summon a God, in this one either, just an average Tuesday, myths, soul bonding, the stories are real
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-30 14:02:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19854700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qwerty_Hargreeves_25/pseuds/Qwerty_Hargreeves_25
Summary: Klaus seeks shelter from a storm in an abandoned temple and accidentally binds his soul to a God.~~~~~~~~~~~~~"It was an accident! I take it back.""An accident?" And honestly, the incredulity in those words was enough to make even Klaus flush slightly. "That's impossible. The summoning involved a blood sacrifice, you throwing yourself prostrate at my feet, a pure and perfect belief in my presence at that exact moment. You have to call out my name. That's six syllables in the tongue of the old gods. There's no way you did all of that ON ACCIDENT."





	Of Gods and the Ties That Bind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lifelesslyndsey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifelesslyndsey/gifts).



> Welcome, and enjoy.

Like most stories, it began with a dark and stormy night— but Klaus wasn't a prince, and this wasn't a noble quest. The cold wetness of the wind cut through his thin jacket like knives. Klaus just wanted to find somewhere quiet and dry to hole up for a night or two. 

Normally, he wouldn't have looked twice at the small concrete building. Actually, he usually would have avoided the apparent mausoleum like the plague. He had been up and down this street at least a couple dozen times, and he would have sworn that there was nothing on it other than a few seedy bars and restaurants that had seen better days. 

But it was definitely there. 

Klaus didn't know why he walked up to the door, but when he pushed gently against the scarred wood, it swung open easily. This was a bad idea. Klaus knew that this was a bad idea. The little voice in the back of his of his brain was screaming 'Danger, Danger, Danger!' but Klaus had never let good sense stop him before, and he wasn't starting tonight. 

He walked inside.

Dust lay thick on the floor and drifts of dry leaves crunched under his feet as he walked in. Klaus paused, staring down consideringly. There hadn't been any trees outside.

Klaus felt like even he would have noticed a massive live oak tucked into the narrow alleyways that he distinctly remembered being on either side of the building. 

"I'm not even going there," he decided out loud, looking around the small chapel with a critical eye. "Nothing strange happening here. Nope." The words echoed strangely, even though the narrow room couldn't have been more than a few feet wide. It barely fit a handful of small pews that all faced up towards a small stone podium. 

The silence fell back into place, as thick as the cobwebs that hung like lace from the cast iron candle holders attached to the walls. It felt almost reproachful. Klaus wasn't going to let that stand. 

"All in all, I think I've spent the night in worse places," Klaus said with far more bravado than he felt, performing for an audience of exactly no one... He hoped.

He dropped his backpack carelessly onto a pew, sending up an unexpectedly thick cloud of dust in its wake. It caught Klaus right in the back of the throat, choking him. His throat and lungs burned as he struggled to stop coughing. It took several minutes before, eyes streaming, he managed to catch his breath. "Fine," wheezed at last, "You win this round."

A hint of movement in the corner of his eye. Klaus jerked up, still breathing hard as stared down a hallway that he was almost positive hadn't been there a few moments ago. 

Klaus was pretty sure that he was in some sort of horror movie. He stared at the opening. He could see the edge of an alcove. Some sort of light gleamed— not bright, not exactly, but not as dark as it should have been. 

Come to think of it, for an enclosed stone room without any windows, Klaus could see surprisingly well. 

If this was a horror movie, Klaus thought semi-hysterically, the worst thing he could do was turn his back. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small plastic baggie. Crunching the bitter pills between his teeth as he stared, Klaus was half-convinced that if he looked away, the hall would disappear again. 

The only thing worse than a magically appearing hallway, he decided, was one that appeared and then disappeared again. 

"Nowhere to go but forward," he said at last, moving slowly towards the opening.

The hallway was cold, much colder than the chapel had been. Klaus almost expected to see his own breath as he approached the small alcove. 

Half-forgotten memories flooded his mind as he stared at the statue. The cloying smell of incense. The rhythmic chanting as a congregation recited its prayers. His mother's hand— soft, and warm, and so much bigger than his as she lead him out, praises on her lips about how well he had behaved during the sermon. 

It might have been nearly 20 years since he had last stepped foot in a church, but he would bet every last one of his meager possessions that none of the saintly statues had featured a boy, hardly more than a child really, with palms upturned and six tentacles erupting from his stomach to curl around him in long whorls. 

"What in the doomsday cult bullshit is this?" he asked aloud, startling himself as the words bounced back at him, loud and harsh against his ears. Frantically, his eyes darted back to the chapel, suddenly sure that the hallway had sealed up behind him, trapping him like a particularly stupid fish in a net. 

Klaus wished desperately that he had just slept under the bridge like he usually did when it rained. So what if crazy old Tom had staked it out, yelling profanities at anyone close enough to hear him. 

Klaus could deal with crazy old Tom. 

He couldn't deal with haunted occult temples to dark gods that magically sprouted up in the middle of the city from absolutely nowhere. 

What in the fuck was he even doing in here?

Klaus could feel a presence, just out of sight, and he knew, knew in his bones that he was not alone, that there was something else there with him. 

Panic spiked in his chest, tight and hot. He turned, suddenly desperate to run, to escape before something else happened and he couldn't.

Unfortunately for him, the pills had begun to kick in. 

Klaus tripped, ankle twisting beneath him with a sickening crunch as he fell backwards. Pain blossomed sharp and burning against the palm of his hand as he flailed. He hit the ground hard, head bouncing harshly against the foot of the statue. 

“Bu— huh. What the—” he moaned, pulling himself upright. The movement pushed his ankle against the floor and sent an arc of flame up his calf, settling into a deep throb, long and slow where the joint twisted oddly under his skin. 

"Ow," he sobbed, reaching out to touch the obviously broken bone, and blood, bright red and dripping caught his eye. A surprisingly deep gash had opened up in the middle of his hand, the color a startling contrast against the bold lines of 'Hello' tattooed on his pale palm. Klaus's vision swam. 

"Fuck."

A breeze, cool and damp, blew across Klaus’s neck. 

Then he heard a noise, just behind him. The distinct crunch of a shoe scuffing against stone as someone moved. 

For a moment, he was confused by the sound. The only thing behind him was… 

Klaus pinched his eyes shut. 

No. No, this wasn't happening. It had to be some sort of bad trip. It had to be, because otherwise that would mean… 

Silence hung, a heavy presence against his spine. 

Slowly, Klaus turned his head, peeking behind him. 

The boy stood on the dais that had previously held only a stone statue. His hands were still extended, but now the tentacles swayed softly around him as he looked at Klaus with a beatific smile. 

Distantly, Klaus noted that while obviously the same boy— the tentacles were a bit of a giveaway really— the person standing in front of him was at least a decade older than he had appeared in the statue. 

"Hello."

Darkness swam in his vision as the man stepped off of the platform. The last thing Klaus remembered was closing his eyes, letting the exhaustion flow around him until it swept him away.

**** 

Klaus came to all at once. He lurched upright, breathing hard as his eyes darted around the small room he found himself in. He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious, but there were few clues in the sparsely decorated to give him an idea. 

Cool grey stone walls loomed around him. There were dark red wooden cabinets along one wall, completely covered in ornate carvings that made his vision swim when he looked too closely. High above him, much higher than the narrow room would suggest, the ceiling opened up to a clear sky; the stars shone as brightly and steadily as diamonds in a jewelers case. Klaus had never seen stars shine like that, so sharp and clear. 

Klaus looked down to realize that his clothes were dry and clean. Cleaner than they had been in months, actually. Even his shoes, previously falling apart and held together with duct tape, were shiny and new. 

His head didn't hurt. His ankle didn't hurt. Klaus looked at his hand, and other than a thin white line through the middle of 'Hello', there was no evidence at all of the deep gash that had split the palm.

What the fuck was going on? 

He was laid out across a low stone table, placed in the center of the small room. Rock cut harshly into his skin, digging through the thin, supple leather of his pants. For some reason, the table seemed to dip in slightly towards the middle, like a large shallow bowl.

'Altar,' his mind whispered, and then, 'Sacrifice'. 

Klaus yelped, falling off of the platform in a tangle of limbs. The impact made his vision blur again, and he closed his eyes for a moment, resting his head against the cool ground as he frantically tried to figure out where he was and how he had gotten there. 

"Hey, be careful, I just fixed that ankle and I'm not going to do it again." The voice was smooth and deep, warm caramel flowing across his ears. 

For a moment, Klaus relaxed, soothed by something he didn't quite understand. A gentle hand pressed against the small of his back, light and warm. Klaus froze, not even able to breathe as his mind raced.

There shouldn’t be anyone else there. 

"Hey, are you okay? The summoning took a lot out of you." 

The smell of pizza filled the air, heady and warm. Klaus's stomach clenched painfully, and he was suddenly reminded that he couldn't actually remember the last time he had eaten anything more substantial than the occasionally pilfered candy bar. 

“Eat. It will restore you.”

That's the moment he convinced himself it was a dream. A fever dream, or maybe it was the Xanax. Whatever it was, Klaus let himself be taken by it all the same, curious and light. His stomach clenched painfully and his hands shook. The colors and sounds around him seemed to be brighter than they should. The pizza smelled better than anything he had ever eaten in his life. 

It had to be a dream. 

Slowly, Klaus reached out and picked up a slice of pizza. It was bubbling and hot, and made exactly how he liked it. The cheese stretched in long strings from thin, perfectly crispy crust. He could smell the garlic in the sauce, pungent and comforting. He took a bite, and wasn't quite able to suppress the small hum of pleasure as the taste hit him.

It was good. 

It was better than good actually; it was the best pizza he'd ever had in his life. Warm and soothing, tension drained from his muscles and the world seemed to settle around his shoulders as the warm cheese slid down his throat. 

In retrospect, that should have been a red flag.

But it was so good, and he was so distracted, he barely even noticed the sensation. 

It was like that idea you have of what pizza is, when you're a kid. And every time you have it, you're disappointed just a little. Maybe the cheese doesn't stretch like you think it will, or it's too greasy, or the toppings slide right off because someone doesn't understand that more sauce isn't always better. But eventually you make peace with subpar pizza, and enjoy it for what it is.

This was the dream. The perfect ideal. 

This, more than anything convinced him that he was passed out somewhere, that this was just a fever dream and he was going to wake up in the morning— cold, and stiff, and sore, from sleeping on the ground— and this was just going to be a half-remembered dream. 

"Do you like it?" The voice voice broke in again, and this time, Klaus just looked at him.

It was so much easier to just go with it, now that he knew it wasn't real. 

"It's good," he agreed, taking another bite. 

The boy— more of a man really, smiled, soft and sweet. Klaus admired the little wrinkles that appeared in the corners of his eyes. 

Klaus had certainly had worse trips. 

"I'm glad that the offering was satisfactory." Something about the words felt off, important in a way that Klaus didn't understand. 

Klaus hummed, considering the words for a moment before deliberately choosing to ignore them, taking another bite of pizza instead. 

It was good pizza. 

"The binding is complete," the man said, hands glowing with a faint blue light. He made a complicated gesture that Klaus’s eyes couldn't quite follow. A stream of blue light flowed, fine as spider silk, from his chest to wrap around Klaus's wrist. 

The color danced across his skin as Klaus stared, frozen, watching the play of light against his skin. The pizza dangled from Klaus's grip, forgotten. Finally the movement stopped, color sinking beneath his skin, a blue tentacle wrapped delicately around his wrist, tip curling in a gentle whorl across the back of his hand. 

Klaus flipped his hand back and forth, staring at the contrast of the oddly shimmering blue tattoo on one side and the harsh blackness of 'Hello' on the other. 

Okay, that… that might be important. 

"Binding? What?" Klaus's voice shook slightly as he stared down at his hand. 

This was bad. This was bad. This was _bad_. 

"The binding. You summoned me and accepted the offering. We are bound now," the man said, voice low and solemn. "It is done."

"And what, exactly, does that mean?" Klaus could feel the hysteria peeking through, hot bubbles popping in his stomach as he looked up at the man. 

"What do you mean?" he asked, staring at Klaus through furrowed brow. "You're the one who initiated the ritual. You summoned me here. I came because you asked me to. You've been chosen." 

"Chosen." Klaus gaped. "Oh, God."

"Yes?" 

"No. No, this isn't happening." Klaus dropped the rest of his pizza, scrabbling through his pockets for the little baggie that he kept there. "This is a joke. Someone is fucking with me."

"No one is fucking with you, Klaus. We are bound."

"Stop saying that!" Klaus snapped. "This is a bad trip. I am hallucinating this right now. This isn't happening."

"This isn't a trip. I purged the drugs from your system." The man looked away, biting his lip slightly before refocusing on Klaus. “The binding requires a certain level of purity. I didn’t have much to work with.” 

"You did what?!" Klaus nearly shrieked, indignant, hands freezing as he stared up at the boy— God— _bastard_ in front of him. “I paid good money for that high!”

"Are you really surprised? You're the first person to even attempt a summoning in centuries. Your blood is my blood. Our bond is complete, and—" 

"You keep saying that.” Klaus abandoned his search for the moment, using the stone altar to push himself upright, until he was standing, staring daggers into unexpectedly deep brown eyes. “What does that _mean_?”

"You were the one who summoned me!" 

"I did not!" 

"You did! 

"It was an accident! I take it back."

"An accident?" And honestly, the incredulity in those words was enough to make even Klaus flush slightly. "That's impossible. The summoning involved a blood sacrifice, you throwing yourself prostrate at my feet, a _pure and perfect belief_ in my presence at that exact moment. You have to call out my name. That's six syllables in the tongue of the old gods. There's no way you did all of that _on accident_."

"Believe what you want. I don't know who you are, or what happened, but it was an accident and I take it back so, get on your little podium and—" Klaus fluttered his fingers in the direction of the doorway, "And go back to wherever Gods go when they're not here. Let's both pretend that this never happened."

"That's not how this works. I'm not going back. I want to walk the earth." The man crossed his arms, eyes narrowing as he looked Klaus up and down. "I haven't had an acolyte in centuries, and not one strong enough to summon me from the astral plane in over a millennia."

"Okay, look." Klaus stalked over, until they were practically nose to nose. 

Klaus reached out, jabbing a finger into the fabric of the man's black hoodie. Part of it was to make a point. But a larger part was just to see if he could even make contact with the other man. 

He could. 

The knowledge sank like a stone in his stomach. 

"Let's get one thing straight," he pressed on, despite the way that his thoughts were swirling with this new information. Not a hallucination. Not a hallucination. "I am _not_ your acolyte, okay. I don't worship you. I don't even think I like you. You're very bossy, you know that?" 

"Of course I'm bossy. I'm a God. That's what I do." Long fingers came out to push Klaus away firmly. Klaus let himself be pushed. "And you are my acolyte. You would have never been able to pull me from the ether otherwise."

"Accident, remember?" Klaus snapped back, even as he curled into himself, pulling further away from the other man. 

"Either way, you fall so strongly under my dominion that it's actually a wonder I didn't sense you sooner. You definitely belong to me." 

"What exactly are you the God of, then?" Klaus snapped waspishly. "Unusually good looks? Charming personalities?" 

A corner of the man's lips quirked upwards, and he seemed almost smug as he settled back against the wall. "Hopeless cases, actually." 

"Hopeless cases." Klaus's voice was flat.

"Yes. Among other things. But you, Klaus, you call to me. You're like a beacon. Even if I wanted to, it's too late for me to just move on. The binding has been completed. Our essences are entwined." 

As if to prove a point, the man gestured to the thin string of light that still stretched between himself and Klaus. 

"I don't know what that means," Klaus muttered, raking a hand through his hair and trying not to look at his wrist again. "Why can't you just say what you mean?" 

"I am saying what I mean. We are bound. Inseparable. Think of it like a marriage, but it's not exactly 'til death do us part." 

"Oh, good," Klaus sighed, relieved, even as his mind sent up the word 'marriage' in giant red neon, flashing frantically in his mind. "There's a time limit. I can work with a time limit. How long is this going to last?" 

"Well." Tan fingers ran through dark hair and Klaus had the distinct feeling that he wasn't going to like this answer. "Eternity?" Klaus jerked backwards, shock ringing through him. 

Klaus would have been less affected if he had just reached out to punch him across the face. Meaningless violence, he understood. He had cut his baby teeth on the hard and irrational hand of his father's fist. This, this was so far out of his depth as to be completely incomprehensible. 

The God continued, "The last mortal to successfully bind her soul to a God was Persephone. She rules at Hades's side now."

"Persephone. Like the myth." Klaus's voice was flat. 

"A lot of those old stories are true, or at least based in truth." He shrugged. "It used to be a lot more common for Gods to walk the mortal plane, but people stopped believing, and belief is everything."

"So what you're saying is, all I have to do is believe really, really hard that you're not here and you'll go back to… heaven or wherever it is you came from?" 

"That's not how this works. The bond has been sealed. You wear my mark and—" 

"I did _not_ agree to this," Klaus hissed. 

"Yes, you did. When you ate the food I provided, you were accepting me inside of you, literally."

"Did you put... Was there jizz in that pizza?" Klaus screeched. 

"What? No. It was born of my essence. It has a bit of my grace inside of it, that's all. Why would I—" 

"Look, I don't know what kind of creepy God shit you are into." Klaus ran his fingers through his hair, fingers catching on the tangles as he raked his palm through. "Now you're here, and you say that we are married. And I can't be married. I don't want to be married. I don't even know your NAME." 

"You summoned a God from the astral plane, and you're this worked up over the idea of being married? It's not even marriage, that's just the closest aproxima—" 

"You don't understand," Klaus cut him off, beginning to pace across the narrow room as he spoke, "If we are married, I have your name. I don't even know my last name." Klaus looked up, eyes wide. "This is like a shitty country song. _I don't even know my last name_." 

"I think that is a song actually." 

"Pay attention!" Klaus snapped his fingers, watching with interest as the man's eye twitched slightly in irritation. Klaus mentally filed that away for later. "What is your last name?" 

"I don't have one. I am a physical embodiment of a God. I only have one name." 

"What, like Cher?" 

"Like Behawatofuj, actually." Exasperation hung heavily in the words, and Klaus felt something in his chest ease slightly. Exasperation was familiar. Exasperation, he could deal with. 

"What?" Klaus asked, disbelieving. "That's literally impossible to say."

"Well, you've said it once already," the man snapped. "Unless you have any better ideas, you're just going to have to get used to it."

"I’m just going to call you..." Klaus trailed off, considering for a moment. And then it came to him. A wicked smile split his face. “Ben.”

"Ben." His voice was doubtful. "I don't think that Ben is an appropriate nickname for your God, Klaus. Maybe we could go with something more traditional, like 'my lord'."

"Well, I've already got Ben tattooed across my ass, so it's probably meant to be." Klaus shrugged, enjoying the sight of Ben's mouth falling open. "Besides, I like it. You look like a Ben." 

Ben just stared at Klaus. 

It made Klaus’s palms itch. It made him want to _explain_ , and he didn't want to explain _anything_ but suddenly the words were pouring out of him, more quickly than he could stop them. "It was supposed to say Ben and Jerry's, but I ran out of cash."

"Why did you start the tattoo, if you couldn't finish it?" Ben's voice was incredulous. 

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." Klaus shrugged, dropping to sit on the cool stone of the altar, careful to keep distance between himself and Ben. He was still so tired. "Good guys, Ben and Jerry. Only men that have never betrayed me." 

"It honestly astounds me that you made it as long as you have, you realize?" 

"Yeah, me too."

Silence hung between them, thick and heavy for a moment before Ben broke it with a sigh. "I am sorry, for the record." 

At Klaus’s incredulous look, he elaborated, "I thought you understood the implications, when you accepted the offering."

"Is there anything we can do about it?" Klaus asked softly as he lay back against the stone of the altar. 

"No."

"Figures," Klaus muttered, letting his eyes slowly drift closed. "If I wasn't so tired I would... Klaus let the sentence drift off. 

Honestly, he wasn't even sure what he would do. 

"It's the summoning. It takes a lot of energy. Sleep, Klaus. We can discuss it in the morning." Ben's voice was soft, lulling. Klaus slipped a little deeper. "You're safe here, with me."

"Of course you would say that." But the words were barely more than a whisper as Klaus settled into sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! Please let me know what you thought! Seriously, reviews are the reason I write. I need that sweet sweet dopamine. 
> 
> Some extra special shout outs for this story!
> 
> Thanks to Patchouli, who literally dragged me through brainstorming for this story more times than I can count, and allowed me to blatantly pick her mind when mine was beyond the point of exhausted. I couldn't have done it without you patches, for real. IF YOU HAVE BEEN UNDER A ROCK you may not have heard of her Brothers Grim series. That's a crime. You should look it up right now because it is fantastic. 
> 
> AND A HUGE THANK YOU TO BLAZEOFGLORY. She Beta'd this fic, patiently answered about 90 questions, and then Beta'd it again once I just kept typing. She's a goddamn Saint. If you haven't seen her stories, you should definitely check her out! Her writing makes me laugh and cry. Sometimes all at once.


End file.
